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Tuesday, 9 April 2013

9th April 1933 - Terrick to Mary

Hotel BriceRue du Maréchal JoffreNiceDear Mary PleasantYou ought to be here. I wrote you a postcard yesterday while on the Laghet and Cap Ferrat trip, but forgot to post it as I could not find a box right away. The place where I wrote the last part of the card was nearly perfect. I was sitting on a wooden seat in a garden of green lawn and red earth and multicoloured flowers, "Nirvanic" with scents and the humming of bees; and looking straight over the blue Mediterranean, calm as a pool, nesting lazily in the the sun; and out of the hotel just behind came the sounds of a violin playing just the right music. The only thing there to remind you of the vulgar world was the occasional sight of the clients mooching among the flowers, like Stephano and Trinculo on Ariel's island.When I was christened one of my fairy-godmothers when her time came to give me a blessing said that I should spend my life in the most beautiful places of the earth, and then the wicked old fairly whom my people hadn't invited added nastily: "And he shall have to take with him a troupe of common-minded people who at best will make trite remarks and at the worst will ask him to "give them Margate"".Why weren't you there, sitting beside me silently on the seat, thinking thoughts that were the other halves of my own?It was a gap that I tried to fill by cramming a few more words onto your postcard.I do wish I could be there for your treasure-hunt! And to bathe and pick primroses. There is still hope. The Asst. Staff Manager came down with the last party and I told him I wished I knew where I was going. After he got back to London I got a letter from the Staff Manager telling me that I should be here over Easter and thereafter until instructions reached me.